Jonathan Baskett – a tequila sunrise for glass craft and design
Jonathan Baskett is a Canberra-based glass designer who works in collaboration with Nouvel, a glass studio in San Andrés Atoto, Mexico
Born in Canberra, Jonathan Baskett first encountered glass blowing as glass assistant at the Isle of Wight Glass, England. He eventually took up glass at the Canberra School of Art while working occasionally in New Zealand, England, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Sweden.
In 2001 Jonathan got a call from Michael Kramer, to whom he’d been an apprentice in Germany. Kramer had been employed as director for the Mexican glass company Nouvel Studio. In 2003 Jonathan started making his own work at Nouvel, then returned in 2005 to work with them as a designer. He is back there right now helping with their research and developing his own work.
For Jonathan, there’s nothing like Nouvel Studio in Australia. The Mexicans cater for a broad range of techniques, from hand-craft to full-automatic. Jonathan’s role in the research team is to find a way of taking designs from paper, through initial manual production eventually into automated processes through CAD designs—‘I’m the guy on the floor exploring particular techniques’.